Wednesday, August 2, 2017

Will New US Sanctions Regime Finally Hit Putin and Those Closest to Him?

Paul
Goble

Staunton, August 2 – Western
sanctions on Russia up to now have hit the ordinary people of that country,
although not as hard as the countersanctions the Kremlin itself has imposed. But
the Western actions have done less to affect those closest to Vladimir Putin
who, unlike the Russian people, may be in a position to demand he change course
or even leave office.

The Western sanctions regime in
response to Putin’s aggression against Ukraine has been based on the assumption
that if his people suffer, he will change his position. But Putin cares very
little about the suffering of his people – indeed, he has hurt them far more by
his counter-sanctions than the original sanctions did.

The
sanctions regime to date did not hit Putin’s core supporters: the oligarchs and
the super-rich whose position his regime has made possible. Indeed, new
information shows that Russia’s billionaires became significantly richer in the
first half of this year (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=598172C1AD868).

That, of course,
assumes that the measure will be implemented as its backers intended, but Trump
has been anything but enthusiastic about a law that ties his hands and makes it
far more difficult to achieve the rapprochement with Russia that he suggested
during his campaign he wanted to pursue.

And thus it should
surprise no one that some lawyers and businessmen are already discovering “loopholes”
in the law that might be used to allow individuals or corporations to escape
what the authors of the measure appear to have intended, as Russia’s RBC news
agency reports today (rbc.ru/economics/02/08/2017/5980a5289a794754fb147bc2).

It analysts point
out that the new law has a provision that wasn’t in the original draft. That provision
provides that the government can issue “routine” licenses to companies to do
business with Russia if that “does not introduce essential change in the policy”
of the US toward Russia.

RBC cites US lawyers as saying that
this change “leaves to the president real freedom to issue license which permit
actions which otherwise would be subject to punishment” and that the measure
does not provide any means for those who object to any such grants to appeal
them except via the federal courts.

That in turn means that the Trump
Administration could issue licenses under this law which would allow certain
Russian figures to fly under the provisions of the act in their dealings with
the United States and thus feel less pressure from the new measure than many
now are assuming.